The Box Office Thread

Batman v Superman grossed $12.1 million on Tuesday. Domestic total is now $193.2 million. Worldwide total is $501.8 million. To compare, Iron Man 3 had reached $196.6 million in its 5th day of release.

Batman v Superman grossed $8 million on Wednesday. Domestic total is now $201.3 million. In other news, Zootopia is catching up to Deadpool in the worldwide box office. Deadpool has $745.9 million and Zootopia has $718.2 million. Also of interest, especially to Dracula , is that the top 10 worldwide list has TWO Chinese movies at the moment. The Mermaid has grossed $545.2 million and Monster Hunt has grossed $385.3 million. Both movies flopped in North America.

Final numbers are in. In its 2nd weekend of release, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice grossed $51.3 million. That's a 69.1% decline from its opening weekend. To compare, Daredevil had a 55.1% decline in its sophomore weekend. But that movie only grossed $102.5 million domestically. Even adjusted for inflation, that's only $147.9 million. Batman vs Superman is already at $260.4 million domestically and still has another weekend largely to itself. So Doomsday , SnoBorderZero and FShuttari are celebrating way too quickly. The movie is also at $682.9 million worldwide. It needs $800 million to break even.

What we have left this year:

Captain America: Civil War
X-Men: Apocalypse
TMNT: Out of the Shadows
Suicide Squad
Doctor Strange

Only one or two of those have the potential to be hated by people. And probably none of them will flop at the box office.

The marketing team for Hardcore Henry fucked up. Had they known, or at least suspected, that people would hate Batman v Superman with a passion, they would have marketed that movie a lot better. It could have literally stolen the fanboy audience away. But right now, it's very much a low-key movie. Then again... crazier things have happened. 

As we head into the weekend, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has grossed $270.5 million domestically and $704.5 million worldwide. The good news for Warner Bros. is that they'll break even. They might even make a profit once Blu-Ray, VOD, Streaming and TV rights are factored in. But it's definitely not the success they sought. IN FACT, it was recently announced that instead of firing people, they're just gonna release less movies over the next few years. That should fix the financial books, right?

On the other side of Burbank is Disney. As I said earlier, Zootopia has quietly been a tremendous hit for the studio. As of right now, it's the highest grossing film of 2016 with $807.1 million worldwide. It should reach a billion once its released in Japan and other key markets. Domestically, it's still at #2 with $280 million. Considering it only has a week left till Jungle Book makes it irrelevant, it'll reach $300 million and then burn out. Compared to Disney's other non-Pixar 3D animated films, it has out-grossed all except for Frozen. Expect to see more Princess and talking animal movies from Disney in the coming years.

Opening tonight are The Boss and Hardcore Henry. Surprisingly, or NOT surprisingly, there's a good chance that The Boss will be #1. That has to be very embarrassing for Warner Bros., Ben Affleck, Zack Snyder and everyone involved in the DC Cinematic Universe. Guys, try not to fuck up the Suicide Squad.

Throughout the remainder of April there's The Jungle Book, Barbershop 3, The Huntsman's Winter's War and Keanu. So there's still quite some time left till Captain America: Civil War is released. It FEELS like it's around the corner, but it kind of isn't. We still have a few movies to plow through.

The Jungle Book will no doubt be a hit. Barbershop will succeed with it's target audience. The Huntsman 2, which is essentially Frozen for adults, may or may not do well. It's too soon to tell. The same can be said for Keanu. So there's still some money to be made for Batman v Superman and Zootopia. That March release date was a stroke of luck.

Warner Bros. is being rescued by the system they created - but they're also not learning from it. Tim Burton's Batman opened on June 23rd of 1989 with $40 million. That was INSANE back then. The following weekend, which was extended by the 4th of July, it made $43.4 million. Even today, it's unheard of for a movie to break an opening weekend record and then make MORE money in its second weekend - holiday or not. TWO days later, Warner Bros. released Lethal Weapon 2. It dethroned Batman and was the #1 movie for 3 weeks and then made steady money though the remainder of the summer. Believe it or not, back then, people liked Lethal Weapon more than Batman. It had WAY better legs. Batman, like most modern day blockbusters, was front-loaded. It was MASSIVE for a weekend or two and then fizzled out. And it didn't matter because it made enough money during those couple of weeks to help it become the year's top grosser. 27 years later, Batman v Superman is benefiting from that system. BUT - what happens when people don't like the movie? You're seeing it now with Batman v Superman. It's not gonna make a profit in spite of big box office numbers. So how do you fix your financial books? You need a Lethal Weapon 2. You need that movie, with a reasonable budget, that's gonna play for several weeks and let the cash flow in. Disney is doing it right now as we speak. Jungle Book will make money for 2 weeks and then disappear when Captain America: Civil War is released. But that's okay because Zootopia has quietly been making money for 6 weeks. So while Warner Bros. is losing money and has to cut back on their slate, Disney is making a shit ton of money and is increasing their slate.

Yes and no.

By Labor Day weekend, which is officially the conclusion of the summer movie season, Lethal Weapon 2 was still selling over a million tickets. Batman was down to 891,000 tickets. A month later, Lethal Weapon 2 was still playing in over a thousand screens. Batman, however, seems to have gotten a second life in the dollar theaters. It concluded its theatrical run in December - even though the movie was already out on VHS. Lethal Weapon 2, for whatever reason, is missing data. Its last reported box office is on October 9th. It was ranking at #11 and playing in over 900 screens. Most likely, it played throughout October and then went to the dollar theaters in November. It probably ended its run around the same time as Batman. So unless we can find a newspaper, magazine or TV news segment from early 1990, Lethal Weapon 2's online data is incomplete. All we know is that it grossed $147 million from July to October 1989. That's $322.6 million in 2016 dollar which is, more or less, what Zootopia will end up grossing. So my comparison to Zootopia is still valid. They're both movies with a reasonable budget that played for a long time and made money for the studio. It was Warner Bros. second biggest hit of the year. If Batman had flopped, they would have used Lethal Weapon 2 to fix the financial books.

Right now, Warner Bros. has no Lethal Weapon 2. Their second biggest hit right now is How to Be Single which only grossed $46.7 million. They do have Barbershop 3 and Keanu opening this movie, but neither are blockbusters. The Nice Guys, Me Before You, The Conjuring 2 and Central Intelligence are all counter-programming for the summer. So, REALLY, their next blockbuster isn't until July when Tarzan opens opposite Steven Spielberg's The BFG. Which do you think will be #1? Then, they have Light's Out, another counter-programmer, and FINALLY the Suicide Squad. So Doomsday is right. Warner Bros. is only relying on tentpoles. That's not smart business. They waste money on counter-programming, hoping something will stick, and then gamble on big-budget films. They need to go back to the Batman/Lethal Weapon 2 model: big blockbuster and little blockbuster and maybe a mid-sized blockbuster. That's what Disney is doing. Zootopia is a little blockbuster, Jungle Book is a mid-sized blockbuster and Captain America: Civil War is a big blockbuster. Then they have Alice 2, Finding Dory, The BFG and Pete's Dragon as their safe gambles. Any of those movies can flop, or under-perform, and they'll be okay because their 3 main movies did the heavy-lifting.

Jungle Book 2 is already in the works.

I've been pretty disinterested in the whole live action fairy tale thing and I know I said I'd probably wait to see this on DVD but the reviews have been very good. Plus my last exam is on Thursday so I'll probably want to award myself.



I'm curious how the rest of the year's superhero films will fare.



He's a Ghostbuster too apparently.

It's hard to believe that Civil War is tracking to beat Batman v Superman at the box office. Even in my most pessimistic speculations about how bad BvS would be, I was sure that it would reign as the top comic book movie of 2016. There was no way it wouldn't manage to break $1 billion, but now it looks like they'll be lucky if they can limp along to $900 million.  For a film that needed $800 million just to break even, that's kinda pathetic.